Style of Business - Page 4

The Globe Trotting Traveler’s Business musts: Tumi Ultra Slim Adapter Kit

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The ten adapter tips that come with this little entourage are what really pack a punch. When you are on the go in Singapore, New York, Hong Kong or Athens, the 120v AC adapter with the air connector cable will keep all your accessories purring and ready. The real selling point in this kit is all of the tips included, so you aren’t without anything you need to get through your haul through the time zones. There’s nothing quite like reaching your destination and being drained or on empty, and this array of prongs and prolific electronic juice will prevent you from the chronic “arrival without enough charge” meltdown.

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Cashing in on Your God Given Talents; Making A Lifestyle of What You Love

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Itching to do what really makes you tick

There are a lot of people out there who know by all means what they want to do with their life when they are very young children. The question asked to many of what they really want to be when they grow up resonates with us forever, and we may change our minds many times along the way. Some people think that athletes have it really easy, and are jealous of their success. But if you participated in a rigorous training session with a high paid athlete, you could change your tune. They absolutely love what they do, but their dedication level is staggering. When many people are young, they may feel they have a knack to be a doctor, or a scientist, or teacher. But along the way you can encounter obstacles, difficulties these days with student loans, and the world can move right underneath your feet. For better or for worse, it can show you not only your priorities, but the things you really love to do most and you may have to face questions of how much you are willing to sacrifice.

What level of compromise do you accept?

One statement that has been said in the marketing realm before is that “everyone is just crabs pulling each other down, and a few crabs or squids get out of the bucket and do something big”. This was in relation to writing a book, starting a profitable company, or finding a way to escape the rat race. Think of this modern day scenario: a couple has a child, mortgage, and other bills, and decides to start a tax preparation business. They engage fully in the venture, and are able to pay their expenses and continue a happy life together. But they realize that crunching the numbers, dealing with the quarterly filings, and occasional abusive client is making them miserable. It’s a very hard rut to be stuck in, because the need to pay monthly expenses is dire, but they are not really doing their life’s work, or their calling. Many record store owners went through a tough time when media became more digital, having to lose the storefronts and space that they loved, but were able to reinvent themselves in the online world.

The steps to optimizing your gifts in the long run

One commenter on a marketing blog stated that “Just liking or enjoying something isn’t enough to commit to the true passion level”. We see a lot of people involved in fitness, running, rock climbing, and novelists really have to persevere to get themselves to the finish line. What they define as happiness and success is what governs them; the number of hours put in does not have to burn you out. To really optimize your gift and how you want it to work for you, the hurdles in your way may make you squeamish, but a true talent will get you through the hardest of times. Forming an alliance with other marketers or niche products is a great first step, as well as keeping up to date with your passion by articles and more market research.

A talent like music is so deeply layered, with first steps to maximize your gifts wondering if you want to stay solo, collaborate, do original music, or just covers. With multiple social media outlets your passion may have to run high to cover your content across all of them, and stay fresh. The content and product kings right now definitely cover the culinary and travel adventure world quite well; However there is a lot of room left in the cooking field. As a marketer I really loved the segment in the film “Up in the Air” that talks about your true passion. George Clooney is laying off a worker from an office job, and asks him what his true passion was years ago before the pressure of paying bills seeped in. He admits that he would love to run a restaurant, and Clooney gently talks him into it.

One Final note

If talking to people and reaching out is your strength, an extra bravo to you! Go to all the local trade shows, business meetings, and partner-ups you can find locally, for you will stand out. Don’t be eager about the bottom line and exactly what is at stake, just be yourself and form powerful friendships with others in business. When you reach out and do a favor for someone else locally or nationally, they will be eager to see exactly what your passions are and what drove you into your business; and someday the favor could come back in the form of much higher reach or success.

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The Success of Alive Shoes and How You Can Incorporate Their Strategies

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The brand and what users love about it

For years, brands like Vans have had “design your own” fortes and features, and have come close to what Alive is succeeding at right now. The model in question is a low-cut blue leather top shoe named after a French woman in her twenties who thought that a bare-bones approach and a young-looking product were going to appeal to users who also loved to try their hand at the design process from the comfort of their laptop. She sold 15 pairs in less than two weeks by using Facebook, flyers, and personal emails to her contacts convincing them it was a great product and spreading the quirky vibe of organic influence she wanted to cultivate. The fact that there are over two million design elements and 30 colors to choose from appealed to users right away, and customers loved being able to even choose their packaging. Having customers create their brand page was a step towards not just getting your pair, but having a share in post-design revenue.

Quality of craft and crew

Artisans in Italy have been known forever as experts, and true craftsfolk that have given us brands like Aldo, Santoni, and Gucci. Thought of as luxurious and post-Renaissance cultivators, This was a top-notch region to pick the people that would create the wares of the new brand. Kenneth Cole designed iconic pieces to wear like the leather Oxford, the Upscale Loafer, and their wingtip having an incredibly rich flair and luster; and Alive was well directed in choosing “The boot” of creativity as their construction base. When users joined and saw that they could design pretty much an entire shoe collection in just a few days, it became evident that anyone who had the desire to create could do so without too much of a headache. Having the means in place to produce the visual design, ship out the finished product once enough users wanted it, and provide good customer service moved Alive up the ladder in Beta stages as well. If a new user just wants their shoe, only having 7 pre-orders is reasonable, as soon as your creative flair kicks in and you get others who embrace your design.


Modeling your idea after Alive’s voracity

It could be said that not every single business model involves a design of your template, and some are for straight profit and subscribership results. But a few very dynamic ideas come across to the marketer from Alive’s success. One was having a very user-friendly dashboard that you could log in and see information about your design while it was in process. The developers already had fixed prices for the shoes, which helped alleviate dissatisfaction among customers who may not understand the discrepancies in the worldwide market. As soon as a project was ready, you could still revert to a draft to fix it, a key element in making all of the users happy for a long time. Payment is by Paypal or Bank check, and a complete sales campaign is easy to achieve, after 7 units. In their haste to be cautious, other startups in this same genre created a lot of hoops to jump through in the design approval process, shutting some beginners out in their efforts to be streamlined.

One of the biggest faults of current-day businesses is their ability to adapt to what a customer wants. With the fear of the bottom line and revenue driving every move, many business models quickly become inept by not allowing the final step to happen, or the creation of the merchandise. Especially in the publishing realm, copyright, and true user property were scrutinized and several design-your-own template models failed. The simplicity of the premium account was also a plus for Alive, as with the purchase of one, you bypass the other campaign rules. With partners like the Dutch Shoe Academy and Startupbootcamp, the brand is a stimulating portal to even use as a model in a marketing class or teaching medium. It is not a surprise that users love the interface, medium, and message; and a lot can be learned from Alive’s innovative design and follow-through of the product.

For more information visit Aliveshoes.com

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Ultra-Productive Bookmarking App: Pocket

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Pocket was called by Cnet a great bookmarking tool that the website also ranked with 5 stars. Whether what you store is from Twitter, newspapers, or any other medium, it saves it and organizes it for later viewing, even if you have no internet connection at the time. Devices like Kindles are great for this; you’re not constantly typing in URLs and re-browsing through your tracks. Check out the video below to see how Pocket can help you save time.

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Great Productivity App: Evernote

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evernote-logo Evernote is perfect for marketers, managers, realtors, and producers. This application gives you the opportunity to have things like to do lists, record reminders, and study for school. It’s a bit like Pinterest in the way that things show up like photographs you want to keep organized; but so much more in that it connects all your devices as well. It’s like having a to-do list that links right to the project that needs to be done, just for starters!

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Marketing Issues + the Current Climate: Finding a Product to Push in a Down Economy

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There comes a period in everyone’s lives when they wish they could pursue on their own; and be their own boss. The key to really attaining this can also be doing it part time while still having steady income, as the most successful know. But many newcomers to internet marketing get frustrated when they realize a certain few people have made it really big in the products they push; and then some very smart and gifted folks are stuck spinning their wheels because they couldn’t get advertising capital, partners, or both.

Welcome to the new climate; sometimes logic is all but gone, and those who claim to guarantee they know what works may fall short. What we do know from research and simple gleaning on the web for info is that some of what is up right now are necessities; or things people can do without. The other things that are performing well are things that people CAN live without but won’t.

Well, everyone knows hospitals and healthcare will always be there, but with the addition of many third party vendors on the scene lately, it is VERY hard to march in as a little guy and just make a profit. Of course we always recommend Smart phone app designers look into any kind of app that streamlines the admission, testing, or recovery process. There is competition out there, but research could benefit you before pouncing.

There are folks in cities like San Francisco who have made huge profits from emergency nurse staffing. These ideas are still thriving and generating revenue; but you may want to look at someone successful and how you can help them instead of starting your own company. These things take hours of research, and you start swimming in the spam pile of emails hoping to be noticed. As the economy in Europe is getting worse and the global alarms are still not off, necessity seems to be key. If you are presented with an inheritance, some spare money, or anything of the like, no matter what anyone tells you, BEWARE THE STOCK MARKET.

Yes, there are brash folks who seem to know it all and are making gains out there right now. And no, they are not “lying” or “wrong”. We won’t get into specific companies, safe havens, and where to take your money (in this article) but even the emerging markets are risky. 3-D printing is kind of big right now and there were some minor gains in the market recently, but with political fallout and uncertainty with gun laws, be careful. Airlines: they are all going to be merging even more in the near future and could remain bullish.

Yes, profits are at a record high for some but beware being the investor, we urge you. The overall apartment rental market: qualifies as a necessity. Buying apartment buildings for rent has still made many rich. What you need to consider is that sometimes all of a sudden if a tenant does stop paying, it could be expensive to evict them and you will lose two months income. There is an element of gambling here because good people still lose their jobs.

If you are looking at rental properties for gain, really take into account the location. Another thing to work into the formula is if you are looking at issues like Section 8, Federally or State granted programs etc; Carefully research whether or not you think that funding for these programs will be cut in your specific area. One issue with rental properties is that you can start to spend your profit quickly, being willing to be in the red but quietly celebrating all of your tenants paying on time for three months, “The economy must have really recovered” you tell yourself; and then all of a sudden, every water heater goes out in the building. OOPS. Try your hardest not to spend your way out of the red, and not having disaster cash.

The most successful rental property owners have very, very competent folks managing their properties who can deal with anything at the drop of a hat, including disputes over parking, zoning, partying, and maintenance. Maintenance is the key issue that kills many rental owners just getting started. They never had a chance; because the first three properties they bought all got flooded, had water heaters and furnaces go out in the first three months. This is not pretty when it happens to you!

We will look into rental properties in depth in the near future. Remember that a lot of good people got foreclosed on the last 6 years, and still need places to rent. The problem herein is that all it takes is a new pattern of people shorting you here and there for a month and you can be doomed, especially if it just a six plex or less. The main thing we will urge you to look at is not Ebay, not Etsy, even though we will look into Etsy in depth in the future because it is still viable. Hours of research have shown us that the wedding market and pet care markets are the fastest to jump right into in your city and make a profit. There are still many hurdles, and you have to stand up to competition. If you are a photographer, get on Craigslist and offer a few free shoots and then build up from there.

If you want to get into wedding photography, start charging more all of a sudden. You need to be VERY FIRM about rates. Giving someone a discount even if you really need the work could be seen as a sign of weakness; and you do not want that. People are making a lot of money with pet products. Some of the biggest successes are those who think small and market little dollar toys and treats. Shampoos, treatments, collars, they are all fair game.

Yes, you need capital. Yes, you will need to advertise and get some very hip content on your blog or website to drive traffic. Yes, some people will waste your time, be all over your webpage, and then not even buy. But the same things happened to many other services in the past. Personal trainers and wedding planners, although they may not become extremely wealthy, are some of the fastest growing professions out there.

The valuable asset here is that it is steady, and people WILL write you the check when it comes time. We will talk about good billing methods, Paypal, and smartphone card readers soon. For now… research what is selling and what isn’t. Realize that the things with the most bells and whistles, or luxury items; can be risky. Stick with necessity on your brainstorming of marketing ideas, and next time we will show you a few moral lessons from some current films.

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